


the dreaming of the body

by foxgloveincense



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:08:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25973398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxgloveincense/pseuds/foxgloveincense
Summary: Claude may not be plagued with ghosts like Dimitri's, but he's haunted in his own ways.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 16
Kudos: 69





	the dreaming of the body

**Author's Note:**

> hello, this is literally the first fic i've completed in seven years. i played fe3h this spring and after being inspired to start (but not finish) tons of WIPs, dimiclaude finally grabbed me by the throat. this is really self-indulgent sappy bullshit and i hope others happen to enjoy it, too!
> 
> the timeline for this fic+their relationship is vague in this, but it's at least 5 years post-game. 
> 
> they're both supposed to be trans in this but that didn't end up coming up in the fic itself. but they are.
> 
> shout-out to Nancy for non-stop encouragement and late-night convos full of overthinking claude and dimitri's traumas and relationship dynamics. ♡
> 
> title is a line from "the tower" by RAGANA. [audio here](https://ragana.bandcamp.com).

The dream ends in a way that has become routine: Claude as a child, so much smaller than he ever was, collapsing to the floor, clutching his erratically-pounding chest, unable to draw in air, his kin rising above him like wyverns circling prey, the sharp weight of their judgment pressing into his throat, while the ground beneath him disappears in a growing swarm of dim spots.

And then his heart seizes and his vision blacks out.

And then he’s awake.

He stares wide-eyed at the canopy of the bed without truly seeing it, in that strange inbetween of grogginess and stress-induced adrenaline rush: breath coming too quickly, heart beating too frantically, a phantom ache in his chest. The echoes of his half-siblings’ jeering still rings in his ears. 

Claude draws in a breath through his nose slowly, wills his sweating hands to slacken where they clutch the sheets in a shaking death grip.

These unpleasant jaunts down memory lane really shouldn’t affect him so much, after all these years. He’s no longer that small child, learning too young to think on his feet as a steady stream of flame flares up from underfoot. He’s King Khalid of Almyra, five years into his reign, a veteran military commander who has survived far worse than attempted poisoning --

and there’s a rustle of sheets off to his side. Someone else is in his bed.

He’s moving on pure instinct before the thought completes, twisting onto his side to face his assailant, shoving a hand under his pillow for the dagger that is there -- except it isn’t. He’s drawn up short, and as his tired mind tries to rein in his racing thoughts, he takes in the blond hair strewn across dark pillows.

Right. Fhirdiad. Dimitri’s bed. Not his own chambers back in Almyra; not his childhood rooms, where knives seemed to slip in so easily under the shadowed veil of night.

The breath that’s been caught in his throat drags out of Claude in a long, harsh sigh, and he deflates back against his pillows, watching the broad, scarred back of his lover rise and fall to the easy rhythm of sleep. There’s scant moonlight filtering through the curtained windows, but Dimitri’s hair, haloed around his sleeping face, still seems to glow in the blue-gray of the room.

Claude takes a few more moments to breathe in, hold for a three-count, breathe out, until his heartbeat is no longer the loudest thing in the room. He watches Dimitri the whole time, traces the softened lines of his body at rest, times his own breaths to the pace of Dimitri’s. Willing some of that quiet peace into himself.

It's been a while since shades of his past ruined his sleep so soundly, and much longer since they’ve sought him out while he’s with Dimitri. He’d thought he’d finally managed to find reprieve from more unpleasant memories creeping in when his guard is unavoidably down, wrapped up in the warm solidity of scarred arms. Usually, when they’re together, it’s Dimitri’s own night terrors dragging them both awake, Claude’s heart pounding in his throat as he tries to gently talk Dimitri away from the ghosts that follow him into wakefulness.

Careful not to disturb Dimitri, Claude shoves the blankets off his bare body as he edges off the bed, and is promptly reminded he’s in a frozen wasteland of a country. It’s the height of spring in Faerghus, and yet it could be deep winter for how the chill pierces Claude’s skin. He scoops up a shirt from the foot of the bed to tug on -- one of Dimitri’s, practically a coat on Claude and immediately comforting -- and pulls a pelt from the furs strewn across the bedding to drape warm and heavy across his shoulders.

He walks over to the window, pulling the curtains open a few centimeters to allow more pale moonlight to suffuse the dark room. Everything goes from dense blue-gray to soft-glowing silver; the sky is a clear, deep indigo, a heavy dusting of stars safeguarding a waning moon. Claude pulls Dimitri’s shirt tighter around him, staring up at the endless expanse above for a few moments before he steps away.

The washroom connected to Dimitri’s bedchamber is just near enough the window to illuminate the vanity and an ornate basin waiting atop it, the mirror wavering with faint light reflecting off water. Even in the pervading chill, there’s lingering traces of the comforting humidity of their earlier bath together.

Claude cups ice cold water into his hands, and pauses lifting them to his face as he catches his eyes in the mirror. His breathing is calmer, but his pulse still loudly pounds in his temple, the edge of his vision pulsing along with it. His skin feels too tight, eyes strained and exhausted. He’s always had a hint of dark circles, all those long nights spent thinking himself into circles, but at some point they’d deepened into shadows weighing his face down.

It’s irritating. Having so little control after years of self-conditioning is _irritating_.

He let’s the water pour out of his hands back into the basin, and then dunks his face in, and then regrets giving in to the impulse, because the water is _cold_ , but the shock of it seems to help. He comes up for air and meets his reflection, his face freezing in the Faerghan chill. Water drips from his hair, down his jaw, catches in his beard.

It’s not that Claude is a stranger to nightmares, but he can’t remember a time they felt this… physical. The dreams seem so real, the pain of death clinging to him as he wakes in a rush of visceral anxiety. Sometimes, even after his eyes are open, it still takes a moment to realize he’s not there, years in the past, torn between fight or flight.

From the start of the war up until his coronation, he’d stopped having dreams at all, good or bad, and he’d been thankful. He’d been exhausted and sleep-deprived enough without his own mind interrupting the few hours of rest he managed.

At some point, though, not long before the crown graced his brow and he finally sat upon the Almyran throne, they’d come back to plague him. In the months leading up to his coronation he’d started having too-real dreams predicting the future: the ceremony is nearing its end, the crown is placed upon his head, and he takes a heady sip of wine, only to feel the immediate grip of poison.

The actual ceremony went off without a hitch, barring some courtiers getting too deep into their cups, but the nightmares remained. They changed after a while, just barely: his sleeping mind now seems preoccupied with dredging up childhood memories, weaving a new story of his potential early death with each one.

What exactly brings him to his knees changes from night to night -- in this one arsenic, in that one datura -- but the end is always the same: him grasping at his chest, the floor rising to meet him, only for the sight of his bed’s canopy to burst into his vision, chest heaving as he grips his sheets with hands slick with sweat.

In some dreams, he meets other deaths: a knife digging into his stomach, a frenzied wyvern closing its jaws around him, a rough shove off a balcony. All possible endings to his life that he managed to avoid in reality, with a little luck and a lot of tenacity. 

Poisoning seems to be the one his unconscious mind can’t let go of, though. Maybe because he’s intimately acquainted himself with poisons, such a favored weapon of courtly nobles, poured hours of research into toxicology, seeking out some form of control, a way to always be prepared for the inevitable.

It shouldn’t be such a big deal. It shouldn’t have him feeling like such an uncontrollable, emotional mess when he wakes up. He shouldn’t feeling like he’s _literally dying_.

He’s worked hard over the years to build an impenetrable armor of cool and collected confidence, a king and leader always in control of both himself and everything around him. There are no weak spots for his enemies to aim their knives, no long-buried traumas for them to dig up from the ground and use as kindling. There can’t be: even in the relative peace and stability he’s built the last few years, he can’t let his walls down a single meter. It would be so easy for the fragile foundation he’s been laying in Almyra to crumble if he makes one wrong move, let’s the smallest bit of weakness show. 

His very body has him branded with suspicion no matter where he goes, so why not build up an armor that gives people exactly what they expect? Reflect their preconceptions back onto them, distract them from seeing anything he doesn’t want them to see.

It’s worked for him so far, all these years. He’s achieved so many of his goals, made some of his loftiest dreams into reality, with the aid of allies his younger self never could have expected following him every step of the way. Almyra is flourishing: his work on negotiating peace treaties and open border policies with neighboring countries hasn’t exactly been _easy_ , but he’s getting the results he’s always hoped for. Culturally-ingrained xenophobia isn’t something he can root out overnight, maybe not even in his lifetime, but he keeps an eye out for those little signs of progress, in Almyra, in Fódlan, and beyond, and let’s the hope buoy him forward.

He has the unerring support of the king of a united Fódlan, too, both of them striving to cultivate the seeds of a more peaceful and accepting world. 

And with Dimitri… he’s fallen into a love he never once considered could be part of his life. Never thought such an honest, mutual commitment would be possible alongside all his schemes and aspirations. 

Things are really, really _good_ for him now, to say the least.

So why do these night terrors insist on haunting him _now_ , when he’s had blissfully dreamless sleep for so many years?

With a frustrated sigh, he uses the hem of Dimitri's shirt to wipe off the last of the droplets from his face and hair, and then just holds the fabric there, breathing in the familiar scent woven into it. It's more soothing than it has any reason to be.

The quiet calm of the moment is then shattered by a harsh cry. Claude's heart is immediately set to racing again, and he rushes back to the bed, pelt sliding off his shoulders and to the floor in his haste.

Dimitri is writhing on his side, curled into himself and rending the sheets to fraying, choking out half-sobbed pleas for mercy. Claude steps around the bed to his side, making sure he’ll be in Dimitri’s direct line of sight before he tries waking him. 

He always thinks back to that first time Dimitri’s ever-faithful ghosts had crept into their shared bed. Claude had made the mistake of trying to wake Dimitri from his nightmare by gripping his right shoulder from behind; the rest of the night and most of the morning had been spent with Claude nursing an arm sore with healing magic and Dimitri scared to touch him, self-flagellating apologies pouring out his mouth like flooding snowmelt.

Needless to say, he’s more careful now. It’s almost a routine.

“Dimitri,” he says, louder than Dimitri’s own panicked voice, “Mitya, you _need_ to wake up.” Claude does his best to pull the blankets off Dimitri’s body, and makes good use of his archer’s arms as he tugs on the one still caught in Dimitri’s hands, jerking at Dimitri’s arms in the process. It only takes a few seconds before both of their voices are drowned by the harsh tearing of fabric.

Dimitri’s eye snaps open and he flings himself upright, taking deep, ragged breaths, as if breaking the surface of violent waters after nearly drowning. 

Claude can feel all the air empty from his lungs in one long, tired exhale. He drops to his knees by the bed, hands settling by Dimitri’s own, but not yet touching. Scraps of torn bedding are still clenched white-knuckled in Dimitri’s grip.

“Hey,” Claude says softly, “Mitya, you with me?”

Dimitri turns just enough to face him, hair wild around his face. His eye doesn’t settle on Claude, though; he keeps glancing toward the foot of the bed.

“ _Hey_ ,” Claude says with a lot more force and Dimitri snaps back to him as Claude raises himself to sit on the edge of the bed. “Eyes on me, okay? Tell me how you’re feeling.”

Dimitri takes in a shaky breath, let’s it back out too fast and too harsh. His jaw works for a moment before he finally says, “Not as well as I would like.”

Claude hums a sound of acknowledgement, finally letting himself take Dimitri’s hand in his own, flicking the fabric scraps to the floor with his free hand. “I bet. Anything I can do to help?”

“You’re already helping.” Dimitri tugs their joined hands closer to himself, and Claude gladly follows. He doesn’t like how haunted Dimitri’s gaze still looks, how bruise-dark the shadows under his eyes are.“It was merely the same vision that comes upon me lately…” He doesn’t like how powerless he feels to truly do anything to _stop_ Dimitri from being haunted. “Anyway, thank you for waking me. I know it is not easy to contend with my… disturbed sleep.”

“I promise, Dimitri, being with you isn’t something I _ever_ contendwith,” and Claude squeezes the hand in his for emphasis. “We support each other, right? Through thick and thin.”

Dimitri breathes out a laugh in response. “You’re right, of course. I’m forever thankful to have you at my side, Claude, and to have the privilege to be at yours.” 

He says it so earnestly, gazing deeply into Claude’s eyes while rubbing a thumb slowly over each of his knuckles, and there’s a warmth spreading from Claude’s chest, chasing out any lingering tendrils of disquiet. 

“Though you must let me apologize for waking you yet again at such an hour,” Dimitri continues, and he sounds so honestly contrite about it. Claude wonders what it would take to convince Dimitri he doesn't need to constantly seek penance for his existence. 

“Oh, well, if I _must,”_ and Dimitri looks so immediately chagrined that Claude leans over and gives him a peck on the lips, distracting him from another apology. “I’m kidding. You’re fine, Mitya, honestly.” Claude’s other hand finds itself sliding up Dimitri’s jaw, up into his hair, gently combing through the tangled mess of it. “I was already awake for a while before you, y’know.” 

Dimitri’s leaning into the hand in his hair, his eye had been sliding shut, but as Claude finishes speaking Dimitri’s gaze finds its way back to him. “You were? Is everything all right?”

Here is where Claude would normally gracefully elide the truth, not quite lying -- he can not bring himself to outright lie to Dimitri, not anymore -- but not altogether honest. He would redirect the conversation to Dimitri’s own burdens, and his would continue to stay buried. 

It’s something they have in common: focusing on everyone else’s problems to distract others, and themselves, from their own.

If Dimitri were awake enough to notice, it would show in the furrow of his brow, the pursing of his lips -- but he’d wait until morning, both of them rested and having broken their fast, before he tried to address it. He was considerate that way.

If he pressed, and Claude continued to dance around his questions with half-answers and questions in kind, he’d sigh and drop it until they did this all over again.

Claude thinks about the level of trust he's gifted Dimitri, and has been gifted in turn. He thinks about his own self-imposed boundaries, borne of paranoia justified over a lifetime, of Dimitri's gentle care, his lack of judgment, his earnest devotion. So many reasons to trust, and never once cause to _dis_ trust.

Claude speaks before he can convince himself not to: “Just my own bad dreams.” He fiddles with Dimitri’s hair, twining it around his fingers, thumb brushing his temple. “Been having the same ones for a while now. Can’t stop overthinking even in my sleep, apparently.” 

He can’t tell if he sounds as awkward as he feels, admitting to this. Talking about himself, his burdens, this directly, feels like working a muscle long atrophied from years of disuse.

Dimitri’s quiet, considering, and Claude simply watches him. Even after so many years, his face seems weighed down in shadow, a little too hollowed out. Claude imagines being able to smooth his exhaustion away with just a brush of a thumb. Dimitri has more than just his ghosts keeping him from truly restful sleep. He takes on the burdens of anyone who will let him. It’s something Claude admires about him greatly, a good trait for a king to have, but it leads to Dimitri taking more onto his shoulders than he should, over-extending himself, forgetting he has people to share the burden with. Claude doesn’t want to be a part of the extra weight on his shoulders.

A hand slides up to lay atop the one Claude has cradling Dimitri’s head, and long fingers wrap around his own, bringing them down so Dimitri can press a kiss to Claude’s knuckles. Claude lets himself be gently pulled along until he’s stretched out on top of Dimitri, propping himself up enough that they’re still talking face to face.

“I’m sorry night terrors plague you as well.” Dimitri actually sounds sorry too, like Claude’s nightmares were something he could have done anything about, if he’d only been aware.

Claude shrugs, his free hand tracing lazily along a scar along Dimitri’s shoulder. “Not much anyone can do about them, right?”

Dimitri makes a considering noise, and seems almost tentative as he pulls their hands away from his lips, sliding the back of Claude’s along his cheek. “Would you like to… discuss what you see, when they come upon you?”

“Probably about as much as you ever want to talk about yours.” He says it with a huff of laughter in his words, squeezing their hands gently. 

It’s not a _no_. 

He could easily end the conversation. Dimitri understands nightmares, understands not wanting to speak the horrors of memory into existence for others to bear. 

He also understands the conflicting desire to be understood, to share all of yourself and have the whole be accepted.

And he’s become endearingly adept at reading between the lines of what Claude says.

“It’s a difficult thing, to willingly manifest your nightmares in the waking world,” Dimitri says. “For many years I thought it better to keep them locked tightly away, inside myself. But someone explained to me that keeping your worries and pain bottled for too long can cause them to rot, and ferment, until it’s a poison within you.” 

His expression darkens as he speaks, gaze drifting somewhere unseen. Claude’s hand moves from his shoulder to his uncovered cheek, both hands now framing his face and drawing his eye back to Claude’s own.

“Anyway. I’m finding that speaking with another about them can help… untangle myself from their pall, so to speak. At least for a while.”

Claude smiles down at him. “I’m glad you have people here you can trust with that part of yourself.” 

“You are one of those people, Claude.” And then Dimitri’s large hand is resting on Claude’s face, mirroring him as he brushes a thumb just under one forest green eye. “You have been such a source of comfort, of unerring support and understanding, and I want to be that for you, as well, in whatever capacity you will allow me. I understand you’re a private person, and hate appearing weak in front of others, but I only desire to offer as much support and comfort for you as you do for me.”

For a few moments Claude can only blink down at him, at this ridiculously earnest, honest mountain of a man, who can somehow just _say_ things like that as if it’s the easiest thing in the world, who sees straight through the walls Claude has meticulously maintained for as long as he cares to remember. 

“Dimitri,” he says, and then Claude’s leaning down to kiss him deeply, slowly, Dimitri making a quiet noise in surprise even as he pushes up into him. When Claude finally pulls away, still close enough to brush Dimitri’s lips with his own, he says, “I love you so much, with everything I am. And I trust you completely, implicitly, more than I can remember ever trusting another person.”

Dimitri’s hand is in his hair now, lance-callused fingers dragging along his scalp, and Claude can’t help his eyes falling shut, basking in the sensation.

“I want to _give_ you everything I am,” Claude says quietly, resting his forehead on Dimitri’s shoulder. “But some things... I’ve spent so long burying them down, trying not to dwell on them. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

Claude suddenly finds his hand released from Dimitri’s grip, as Dimitri throws his arm around his waist, resting his chin on the crown of Claude’s head. 

“We have far too much in common, Claude.” A sigh rustles through Claude’s hair. “I would never rush you into anything, least of all something of this nature. But know that whenever you are ready, I will be here for you, however you need me to be.” 

He gently nudges at Claude until he raises his head, and then Dimitri’s lips are catching his in another soft, lingering kiss. When they part, he looks at Claude with such reverence in his clear blue eye, and there’s a watery sheen threatening to spill over, and it all makes Claude ache with the strength of his feelings for this man. 

“I love you more than I know how to convey with words, and that will never change. Not for anything.”

There’s bright laughter spilling out of Claude’s mouth like stars, and he’s leaning back down to kiss Dimitri again, and again, and again.

“Look at us. We’re a perfect pair of sappy lovesick fools.” He’s smiling so hard it almost hurts, and Dimitri’s smile is just as wide, and then the moment is ruined by a jaw-cracking yawn from Claude. “Wow, okay.” 

Dimitri’s quiet, deep laughter rumbles through his chest where they touch, and Claude can’t help laughing too.

“Perhaps now is a good time to make another go at sleep. There’s probably some hours yet until dawn.” Dimitri lets out a yawn of his own, and he tugs at the collar of his shirt that Claude’s still wearing, until Claude sits up just enough to let Dimitri slide it off his arms and drop it unceremoniously on the other side of the bed.

“Sounds like a plan.” Claude slides off Dimitri to nestle into his side, resting his head back on his broad shoulder, an arm thrown across Dimitri's waist. He clears his throat. “In the morning, after we’ve actually slept, had some tea… Let’s talk about it, all right?”

“Of course, love.” Dimitri presses his lips to the top of Claude’s head, and then he leaves them there, already drifting off, and Claude lets himself relax into Dimitri’s side, into his bed, into the comfort of existing near him. All traces of his earlier stress and unease are mercifully absent as he feels his own eyelids slide shut.

Maybe opening up about himself, about the burden of memories he can’t keep buried down, doesn’t have to feel like flaying himself alive, like making himself a target. 

Maybe it can feel like this: being enveloped in the warmth of unconditional support, of mutual devotion. Of the whole of him accepted, without question or expectation.

**Author's Note:**

> @sylvaincore on twitter if you want to say hi and talk about dimiclaude and fe3h


End file.
